Jail Project Offers Costly Lesson

IT`S AN OLD, unhappy story: So many inmates clog the Broward County Jail that it violates a federal judge`s population cap, so county taxpayers have to put up money for new jail facilities.

The latest chapter in this nine-year-old saga unfolded this week when U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler ordered county commissioners to find some kind of temporary facility to house at least 100 minor offenders, to relieve overcrowding at the main jail. County Administrator Floyd Johnson is trying to solve the problem.

The image of a federal judge in effect taking control away from local officials over a county jail system is not particularly pleasant. The truth is, however, that without Judge Hoeveler`s close scrutiny and without his continuing series of interventions requiring construction of temporary jail facilities and easier release for some prisoners, jail conditions would be intolerable.

This is not a matter of coddling prisoners. Previous county commissioners and previous sheriffs dating back decades allowed the county jail in downtown Fort Lauderdale to deteriorate into a hellhole, a grossly overcrowded, poorly maintained, unhealthy and unsafe facility lacking the most basic necessities of humane treatment.

After prisoners won a 1976 lawsuit before Judge Hoeveler to upgrade the facility, major improvements were made. The county closed down some parts of the old jail, cleaned up others, leased beds at the Fort Lauderdale city jail, bought temporary jail cells and moved inmates to other facilities in the county.

A total of 600 new beds were added countywide, and a new 840-bed main jail is expected to open in July. County taxpayers have spent $69 million so far, and will spend millions more to staff and operate the new jail once it opens.

Meanwhile, the judge repeatedly has threatened to begin imposing stiff fines against county commissioners for allowing the jail inmate caps to be violated.

All this would have been unnecessary had previous county commissioners done their duty to put up necessary tax funds to allow jail facilities to expand in proportion to population growth. Instead, as has been all too common with local government officials, they allowed the problem to balloon into a crisis by stalling, ignoring it and hoping it would go away.